


dream lover

by rensshi



Category: WayV (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25586455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rensshi/pseuds/rensshi
Summary: In the waking world, Hendery can't tell if reality is a watered down version of his dreams. Yukhei's smile is way too bright when he's just standing there towering in the daylight at the airport to welcome him back, so maybe not.
Relationships: Wong Kun Hang | Hendery/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	dream lover

**Author's Note:**

> this is a hendery pov to: [make a mess of the milk blue sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22937389/). i realised i could not write slow burn for shit anymore for an au i already essentially wrote anyway and the writing style here ended up different from milk blue sky idk i was definitely going through something when i wrote that lmao but anyway the thought still goes!!
> 
> daan taat - egg tart  
> ngau lam mein - braised beef brisket noodles 
> 
> title is from the translation of the song title 梦中人 by Faye Wong, the Cantonese cover version of Dreams by The Cranberries.

There’s this thing about the pink dolphins around the coast that Hendery thinks about sometimes. 

Hardly anyone has seen them. Not even Yukhei, who has lived here all his life, and has never been on those dolphin-watching tours, barred by his parents saying _why spend that much money to hope for a glimpse of something that might just last all of a short, breathtaking five seconds?_

“The thing is that they’re not even really pink,” Yukhei explained once. “They’re so pale because they just don’t get enough sun through the kind of waters here.”

“You’re joking,” Hendery said, already tapping at his phone with one hand to Google this at lightspeed before Yukhei, struggling to speak after having taken a huge bite of his food over their dinner, can insist he’s telling the truth.

He wasn’t kidding. Besides, Hendery knows how grey and cloudy the waters tend to be around the coastline—going back and forth on a ferry from home to here or over the sea on a short flight reminds him all the time. The grey mirrors itself in the summer thunderstorms, where everything is stiflingly humid and people have to keep looking up at the sky, and it’s taught Hendery how to save up for extra money for umbrellas, an extra pair of sandals, anything for a rainy day.

“Let’s go out for food. You look like you need it,” Yukhei suggests, stuffing his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans already.

“Are you paying this time?”

“Of course.” Yukhei’s face twitches into a smile, unmistakable even shrouded in shadow against the stark sunset behind him through the grilles of the window. For once, Hendery doesn’t hear Wang Leehom’s speaker-filtered voice crooning from outside since the senior from 502 below is moving out. 

“Then I’ll buy you a new umbrella. I get real sad looking at the poor thing,” Hendery says, nodding at Yukhei’s broken umbrella in the corner.

“What’s the point?” Yukhei mutters as he puts out his hand for Hendery to grab onto and pull himself up. 

“Suit yourself if you wanna be a human lightning rod for the common cold because _I’ll_ make use of it. The sentiment is there, trust me,” Hendery says, grabbing his keys to head out. 

The dirty lights are lit by six in the evening, distant voices from the floors below drifting upwards like some prophetic whispering. Hendery can feel Yukhei watching as he fumbles with double locking his own front door of his room. His fingers are clammy as if he still hasn’t gotten used to this. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Hendery has to say the obvious sometimes in front of Yukhei for him to get the point: that answering yes to each and every date Sicheng or Kun tries to kindly set Yukhei up with, won’t hurt the other party if he says no.

“I’m gonna make a list of things for you to remember when this happens,” Hendery finally gets out, after he’s stopped crying invisible tears of mirth while Yukhei rubs the back of his neck, clearly put out.

“But Kun was being so _nice_ about it. Then he showed me her Facebook profile, and you know he’s serious when he has to pull up pictures,” Yukhei reasons, not even flinching when Hendery lobs a balled up pair of socks at his chest from across Yukhei’s dorm room. 

The faulty pen blots ink across the paper horribly when Hendery keeps his head down to scribble something for their (his) own amusement: Number one, if Wong Yukhei doesn’t learn how to get his shit together for romance, he’ll waste people’s time. Number two, he’ll end up either alone, or stuck having cheap noodles with his best friends instead of expensive _ngau lam mein_ around all the holidays of the year— 

“What’s so funny about me going out to get cheap noodles with you?” Yukhei asks, leaning over him to read Hendery’s list now on the floor with him. His knee is unusually warm against Hendery’s waist where Hendery is sprawled on his front and so his first instinct is to shift himself away. He doesn’t, even though it’s particularly hot today. The sound of traffic below and the distant noise from a construction site drills into the background, pierces the quiet of the walls.

“Nothing really,” Hendery replies easily, and they drop the subject.

  
  


One of his sisters calls him up on the phone as he's walking back to the dorm. He looks up at the sky, clouds having rolled in. 

“You don’t usually call,” Hendery points out, about to sing-song something about her recent engagement news (he's happy for her. He likes the guy enough). 

“Can’t I call my little brother?” she cuts in, as expected. Her tone softens. “I had a dream. Just thought I should call.”

It isn’t prophetic or anything like that but Hendery doesn’t ask questions. Their grandma had been the type to say these things. 

His dreams are persistently brighter when he visits home in Macau. It's always some faded choppy version of this: sunlight criss-crossed over bare ankles through small windows, the violet and blue signage that read nonsensical phrases with the word love in English, always in loud obnoxious uppercase to reflect the pulsing discos in Lan Kwai Fong. Cooler blues reflected off the aquarium in a noisy, hazy restaurant and Yukhei's voice scratchy from sleep and fatigue _._ How orange the sky burns in most of these dreams.

In the waking world when he's back in Hong Kong, he can't tell if reality is a watered down version of his dreams. Yukhei's smile is way too bright when he's just standing there towering in the daylight of his dad's old car at the airport to welcome him back, so maybe not.

  
  
  


Sometimes when Yukhei talks, hands flying everywhere the more animated his speech becomes, or how fired up he feels about something, Hendery can’t help it—he laughs, loud enough for Yukhei to startle at this reaction and look embarrassed and start grinning back. But when they’re around their friends, Yukhei will be the one who gives Hendery a little shake, eyes shining so Hendery can repeat a joke or tell the story that’ll get them all howling in stitches.

For some unknown reason, it takes a while for Hendery to settle on an answer when he gets asked how he and Yukhei met. The reason being unknown kind of makes Hendery feel guilty but according to Yukhei, it just went about running round the same circle of friends, of friends of friends, and more acquaintances. 

Speaking of acquaintances, there's an instance where Sicheng shows Hendery a photo of one, this girl he vaguely remembers seeing at the start of the term. He never sees her in person after that. Yukhei won't seem to let it go. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Hendery mutters, turning back to see Yukhei's baffled expression, like Hendery turning down the prospect of possible young budding romance is crazy.

“Me? What about you?” Yukhei presses incredulously. He catches the look Hendery shoots him and his shoulders deflate. 

It’s cooler tonight, soft wind breeze they haven’t really felt in a while as they line up at a snack bar in the late evening which makes for a perfect night. Hendery doesn't know why he feels totally conned—it’s never a complaint and food is always better with company, but Yukhei is just willing to go along with him, treat or share all this delicious food, and Hendery is already more than willing to forget about the awkward silence even before he takes the first damn bite.

Too much sentiment feels a lot like he'll miss a bus he's meant to catch, magnetic pull of gravity slowing him down and the tiny shift in the center at the timing that's off.

When the end of September comes round and the air is rinsed through and lighter after Hong Kong saw one of the worst monsoons in the past years, there is an assortment of new things that practically make up a rainy day kit left behind by Yukhei in Hendery’s room. He folds aside the new light rain jacket and slides open the package to see the _daan taat_ lined neatly from his favourite bakery _._ He doesn’t even remember telling Yukhei about the place. But the crisp of tart is perfect with the right amount of egg custard underneath the box labeled happy birthday. 

"So what is your type?" Sicheng asks one day. 

"Um, thoughtful. Fun, big appetite," Hendery lists off slowly, trying to catch his breath as sweat drips down on the trail of concrete as they slow down, other joggers continuing their run. He realises Sicheng is looking at him with his head tilted and the next thing he knows is that he's patting Hendery on the back, alarmed as Hendery coughs up the water he'd choked on. 

If a huge part of him is always willing to give in to what's offered before he can even bite, then that says a lot about another kind of hunger. 

People who want to go about things the right way plant their kisses intending to leave it to grow over time.

But when it happened involving Yukhei—in arguably the way that isn't quite right, Hendery felt it hit him like a punch he'd genuinely savour. Leaves him feeling drunken and brave enough to have felt like those neon signs, buzzing bright and hot in his blood even if the actual alcohol was wearing off. 

_You can_ is what Hendery remembers telling Yukhei before it's too late to back out; the appetite gets worse the more you know because you’re given more things to dream about, memory trying to pull out whatever your body’s done. Someone else's laughter had been clear, pearly and pleasant somewhere above Hendery after Yukhei kissed him again harder, the rough of his palm placed carefully across Hendery's bare stomach when they'd gotten their shirts off, their jeans unbuttoned. (She was on her last night passing through the city, a friend of another friend of Sicheng's having a good time out. Evidently fun and sweet in all ways appealing, except she just wasn't—) 

The stickiness on Yukhei's mouth from her lip balm after she had left the room for them both, felt like a thin filter for something Hendery has been trying and failing now to keep. This thing that goes deeper than sentiment if not hand in hand, this thing he feels seeping out through the humidity, charged air, their fumbling hands—all of that only makes his dreams watered down now in return.

“You don’t need to tell me all the details about this huge life event,” Kun says right away after he’s seated himself across Hendery in this rustic coffee shop and settled in with a long-suffering sigh. Kun's tone is softer under the persistent bustle of the morning though, compared to the groggy key smash of a short reply when Hendery had texted him at 5 AM earlier out of desperation.

He feels so fucking strung out; that night with Yukhei left him feeling like he's got a gap in the back of his mouth where a molar used to be, the anesthesia weak enough that this thing called love runs through his teeth with full force and keeps him aching for it. Hendery feels tiny here eating this huge breakfast muffin with Kun like he's with his dad after a dentist trip. 

“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Hendery says, his leg shaking under the table restlessly.

Kun's frown smooths over, hesitation there first before he offers, "Okay, just saying—I think you do know what to do. You know him best."

There is the paralysing phobia when he looks at, well, frogs—and then there’s the undercurrent of the feeling, the tightness around your jaw sunken in bone-deep and quiet from your throat down to your feet, like a condition, rust oxidised in seawater. No one really notices until it's visible. He’s not sure if he’ll ever get used to wanting something so much that looks as intimidating as stepping into a whirlpool in the middle of a raging ocean. 

The waters around the coastline in the Victoria Harbour are never like that, of course. But his mind still goes round in circles again about those pink dolphins that are endangered, and yeah, given the chance he would want to see them. Even just for a magical five or ten precious seconds. 

“I’ve never really given it thought. I’m sad now,” Yukhei had muttered then, having turned the page of his notes, half-done and peppered with strikeouts.

  
  
  


For the longest time, Hendery's been able to just decide what's good or bad for himself. It makes Yukhei protest sometimes when Hendery would blurt out whether or not something feels right, but for all the ways his mouth runs as fast as his mind just goes, it just means that Hendery's never been able to lie very well.

Some things don’t really change.

The basketball court Hendery passes by almost every day has emptied. The staircase of the building he shortcuts through is just as lonely at six in the evening. But Hendery is used to that. 

From his angle here standing through the doorway of Yukhei's room when he answers Hendery's knock, Yukhei’s broken umbrella still sits in the corner next to the new black one Hendery bought for him. It takes less than a month for Yukhei’s hair to grow out again, bangs curling against his eyelashes and brushed away when he peers at signs on storefronts from a distance without his glasses, and Hendery will nag him to get a spare in case he misplaces his pair again. 

What he doesn't want to get used to are things he would like burned into memory, if only to make sure the five or ten precious seconds of a certain moment is real.

And then Yukhei just says it; with all the casualness of someone who thinks walking back from the snack bar on the street after they've gotten noodles can still pass as an acceptable place for a moment like this. He has a look on his face that Hendery has never seen him wear when he meets Hendery's gaze. And then, weighs the sincerity and seriousness of the statement when he says his name: "Wong Kunhang, I like you."

Hendery opens his mouth in an _oh_. Finally says, "Let's go home. And then you, uh—can say that again," he tries. Meaning, _we can try this._

"How long have you felt like this for him?" Kun had asked.

The sky had been clear that day, backdrop of blue through the window in the coffee shop. Hendery meant to really put some thought into his answer because if they were talking specifics, he doesn't know; it's all terribly abstract. But his heart was past the point of hanging out on his sleeve anyway.

"Long enough," he answered.


End file.
